RUBBER: The Bottom

When "Bull Bill" Jeffers bowed out of
Washington as Rubber Czar last September, he flatly announced: "The big
job is done." In the long months that followed, optimism flowed from
the Rubber Director's office; full-page, breast-beating advertisements
of many an oil company happily assured the U.S. that the Battle of
Rubber had been won. But last week, a sheaf of ominous straws fluttered
out of Washington:

¶ The allotment of synthetic rubber previously scheduled for civilian
tires in the next five months has been halved.